In Response to Re: F_Ivanovic 20nl to 100nl Q+A welcome : Which pool player?? Used to be a regular on the pool circuit. Retired now Posted by iGoWaWa
Bali Jans. Granted it was only a best of 3 though (I won 2-1) so it's not really that impressive, although he was unbeaten in the league up until that point. I then got beat in the next game though 2-1 against someone I should really be beating!
So I entered the usual 3 tourneys (main, mini, deepstack) - and all three I failed to cash in. Can't remember how I went out in any of them but I didn't play, or run particularly great. I fired up a couple cash tables and entered an £11 BH £2K gtd. Had a good start where I trebled up with A5 when I hit 2 pair on the turn against a worse 2 pair and just TP. Then a while later I flopped middle set and got tricky by checking the flop - only for my opponent to hit a gutshot on the turn. Money went in and I bink a full house on the river! Then a few hands later I hero call a big river shove with 99 on KQxxx in a 3bet pot and win. So you get the gist - I was running and playing well. Then I got card dead for a while but I was happy to sit on my stack. Managed to get into the money and sitting nicely on 30k when this beaut happened: I raise with Q5s UTG. Call a c/r on a 592 two tone flop and a shove on a J turn. GG me as I run into a slow played AA. What a horrible blow up.
I was so annoyed with myself that I began tilting for the first time in ages on the cash tables. Not massive tilt but I was doing dumb stuff like 3betting "just cause and just being in general somewhat spewy. I ended up £150 down and went to call it a night. But 10 minutes later I decided to see if there was any good omaha running - I fired up 1 table of that and 2 of NL30. Couple hours later I had recouped my losses and was £100 up! But by the end of the night I'd lost that profit and finished virtually BE.
Tonight
So spent yesterday and today with Alicia and not too up for playing poker! Then tonight I watched Rounders; film was v enjoyable (for those don't know it's a film about poker!) and I decided after the film I was in the mood for some poker! Fired up 1 PLO and 2 NLH tables and began to just play terrible for 25 minutes, specifically on omaha. One NLH table I played OK on and got a double up but then made a terrible call on the other NLH table that cost me a buyin. Was going to call it a night but then a well known - UN-NAMED regular joined the PLO table and it was obvious they were on tilt/drunk or something from the get-go. Anyway, in less than an hour I was up to £400 on there. Table broke though unfortunately and after a few more orbits of NLH I've called it a night. So a +£350ish profit or so on the night.
If I can ever figure out posting HH's again I mght post a few of them in my next update! Also, please feel free to ask some more questions! Even post some hand histories if you want me to review them!
Thursday night So I entered the usual 3 tourneys (main, mini, deepstack) - and all three I failed to cash in. Can't remember how I went out in any of them but I didn't play, or run particularly great. I fired up a couple cash tables and entered an £11 BH £2K gtd. Had a good start where I trebled up with A5 when I hit 2 pair on the turn against a worse 2 pair and just TP. Then a while later I flopped middle set and got tricky by checking the flop - only for my opponent to hit a gutshot on the turn. Money went in and I bink a full house on the river! Then a few hands later I hero call a big river shove with 99 on KQxxx in a 3bet pot and win. So you get the gist - I was running and playing well. Then I got card dead for a while but I was happy to sit on my stack. Managed to get into the money and sitting nicely on 30k when this beaut happened: I raise with Q5s UTG. Call a c/r on a 592 two tone flop and a shove on a J turn. GG me as I run into a slow played AA. What a horrible blow up. I was so annoyed with myself that I began tilting for the first time in ages on the cash tables. Not massive tilt but I was doing dumb stuff like 3betting "just cause and just being in general somewhat spewy. I ended up £150 down and went to call it a night. But 10 minutes later I decided to see if there was any good omaha running - I fired up 1 table of that and 2 of NL30. Couple hours later I had recouped my losses and was £100 up! But by the end of the night I'd lost that profit and finished virtually BE. Tonight So spent yesterday and today with Alicia and not too up for playing poker! Then tonight I watched Rounders; film was v enjoyable (for those don't know it's a film about poker!) and I decided after the film I was in the mood for some poker! Fired up 1 PLO and 2 NLH tables and began to just play terrible for 25 minutes, specifically on omaha. One NLH table I played OK on and got a double up but then made a terrible call on the other NLH table that cost me a buyin. Was going to call it a night but then a well known - UN-NAMED regular joined the PLO table and it was obvious they were on tilt/drunk or something from the get-go. Anyway, in less than an hour I was up to £400 on there. Table broke though unfortunately and after a few more orbits of NLH I've called it a night. So a +£350ish profit or so on the night. If I can ever figure out posting HH's again I mght post a few of them in my next update! Also, please feel free to ask some more questions! Even post some hand histories if you want me to review them! Posted by F_Ivanovic
guilty of that soo much this month!
I really need to get good at PLO - I think I've played a couple of short session at PL50 - and not done great - I'm way too nitty for those games at the moment. where did you get your skills from? any learning material you can recommend?...or maybe we can swap some PLO for MTT help (if you want it)
I'm a little suprised you havent done a bit better at the £22 deepstacks - I have come across you a few times and you are definately one of the better players! love that touney, such a good structure. shame it doesnt get more runners really.
To be honest you can get away in PLO with playing on the nitty side since there are a lot of players that will just give you action regardless of how nitty you're playing. I read a book on PLO and some articles online to give me the basics and then just tried to figure things out from there. Recently I watched some videos on pokertube about PLO that were really good - will have to go back and rewatch them soon though to refresh my mind about them!
Last night when I played was an example of just me waiting for the cards and letting my opponents do the betting for me - in one hand I had AAss and raise/flat a 3-bet. Flop was 344 and I c/c. Turn was a Q bringing me a nutFD and I c/c again. I still thought I was easily ahead at this point and raising just seemed pointless as I was prepared to call a bet on any river card (since opponent was playing extremely aggro/spewy) - river was an A though which was nice and I shoved over their pot bet (they had £7 more to call into a £150ish pot so decided to call with J high lol) - they had 26J9 and was drawing almost dead the entire hand!
As for swapping MTT/PLO help I'm a bit undecided on it. Obviously I don't want another good/competant player at the PLO games but if it increases liquidity at the games and means more REC's give it a shot then that would be a good thing!
About the £22 deepstacks - I've gone 4/5 in a row without cashing I think but in my first 5 games of them I had around 3 cashes coming second twice iirc. Been on a pretty bad downswing in MTT's in general in the past couple weeks - kind of annoying since before then I thought I had MTT's sussed again and was playing really well in them. The thing is I know some of my main leaks in MTT's so it shouldn't be too hard to adress them and fix the problem. One of the reasons I like cash is that you tend to play with the same players and so can pick up a lot of reads - but in tourneys you often have to play readless, which I don't like! But that can be OK if I'm only playing 2 tables since I can pick up reads much quicker. As it is I often end up playing 4 tables and end up in autopilot in tourneys which never seems to get me anywhere.
I'm going to give the sunday roller a shot this sunday (prob buy in direct) and I think I'll be 1 tabling it and see how it goes - I believe though unless I run terrible I probably have a v good chance of running far in it if I'm only playing that 1 table!
So as I said I played the super roller tonight although I ended up playing 2 tables with the 7.30 deepy aswell. That didn't go too well - I shoved over someone's flop raise (which I thought looked bluffy) only to find myself run into a set. oops!
So the super roller - had a steady start and it looked to be a really good table but then I got moved to a table that seemed much more tricky. I value cut myself when I picked up AA and bet the river quite large on KJTxx two tone but ran into KT. So I was down to 7.5k after that. Gradually worked it up again with some blind stealing and little resistance but then I just couldn't win a hand for ages. Got down to 6k and limp the BTN with QJs only for the SB to then make a 4x raise! I kind of tilt a bit at this point and decide to call that, but also his POT (standard sizing from him) on an AJ9 flop - Q turn I call his shove with AT. He doesn't hit OTR and I double up. So after that awful hand I'm back in it.
From then on it was plain sailing for a while. I gradually kept building my stack up without ever putting it at risk and was managing to keep myself on average stack size for a long time. I moved tables again and had gadgerno1 sat on my right. In one hand I limp UTG with AKs (inducing a raise from a late position) which comes in and then gadgerno1 3-bets to 5500. Was a bit worrying at this stage now but I figure there's a fair bit out there and if I shove I can get him to fold a lot of hands. So I do just that and I do get it through. I then got AK another 3 times and took down small pots/lost 1 small pot and had reached 40k. Then I flat a CO open with AT and c/c 3 streets (small bets) on AK3QA only to run into AQ. Next hand I try a steal and get 3-bet by a player. Very next hand I pick up AA and get 3bet by the same player. I flat and they c-bet a 443 flop. Turn brings a club (I have no club) and they shove all in after my check. It's a cooler - AA vs KK. They have a flush draw and hit on the river - unfortunately for them it's also an A giving me a FH.
So I'm back up to 50k now. I raise with AK UTG, get a flat from UTG+1 and then BTN 3-bets and for pretty much the first time ever I decide to fold AK! BTN said they had KK after the hand. I was pleased with that fold. Then 2 hands later I pick up AQs on the SB and only flat gadgerno1's open because I'm hoping BB with their stack size will make a shove; which is exactly what happens. However, then gadgerno1 calls pretty quickly!! I should just fold I think but I convince myself that I have fold equity if I shove because he can be flatting 77+, AJ+ and he's probably only calling a shove with QQ+ and AK. Instead he was trapping with AA. GG me! Was so so annoyed at the time with that... just no need to take the gamble! arghh. Nevermind.
Had a somewhat interesting afternoon today. Got absolutely destroyed by Lambert playing HU @ NL30 where he finished around 4BI up on me. If Lambert sees this, hopefully he can post some interesting hands on his diary (as I can't seem to get the HH to work on my diary) - Basically nothing went right in the session for me! In the beginning it took me a long time to get used to it because I was playing 4 tables total with HU here and a HU/then 3 way Omaha and I didn't feel comfortable at all. In addition to this I was getting some lag and found it hard to type in the bet-sizes I wanted! I think Lambert's downswing has definitely ended though :P
Eventually I dropped down to 3 tables and the lag issues went and I could concentrate a lot better. But the damage had already been done in the HU match! However, I faired much better on my other tables overall.
+£10 on a 50NLH
+£75 on a 50PLO
+£133 on a 40NLH
+£56 on a 20PLO
Played really well in the most part apart from some bad decisions when I was playing too many tables! I honestly don't know how people play more than 4 on sky, it's beyond me! Especially when they're playing HU sometimes as well (like Lambert did against me - don't know how many tables he was playing aswell as that) - it's a skill in itself though to be able to mass multi-table.
I had a pretty horrific morning before playing with you, mostly 6max but my HU opponent before you came did exactly what I did to you, just hit every single flop or got there with every draw, got every bluff through etc etc. They took nearly as much off me as I did off you so ended up only being like +£10 for the morning. I assure you the downswing is still in full swing and my BR is lower now than it has been for a very long time.... bring on C4P day to help me out a little!
You were very unlucky today, as you said, just everything went my way. Will post some hands in my diary later for ya but I've already posted 1 in the clinic. Anyone who reads this and that will now know you're the villian but w/e. Be interested to hear your thoughts in the clinic on it.... I think I can jam for value (dunno if u even remember what I did do)
No worries I don't mind anyone knowing it was me so long as you don't give any specific reads! (I guess even then I don't mind as I can adjust :P )
I do remember the hand. Was torn in 2 minds whether or not I should go for a thin value bet but given how aggressive I'd been playing I would probably bluff there a lot so I figure I really needed to be going for the thin value. Just knew though I would end up value-cutting myself!! As for value jamming the river I'm not sure. Probably a little thin given QJ got there. I'm only value betting river with good 9x, Tx, JJ, QQ that lose to you and I may not call of them. (prob call QQ, JJ, Tx) and there's a lot more value hands which I'm ahead of. So yeah I think just flatting river is best.
@IDCU: Was it you that challenged me one time to a game of pool if we met each other at an SPT? Was a long time ago now but I seem to remember it was you! Could be wrong though. I've broke and dish only once twice in a row! Had about 6/7 good oppertunities for it twice in a row but then always scuppered it somehow.
Quick update tonight. After about 6 7.30 deepstacks with me getting noway near the cash have managed to find myself HU tonight! In the main aswell I cashed, finishing around 31st with 2 heads. I barely played any hands all tourney tbh but somehow found myself in the money. Annoyingly my internet went down on the bubble and whilst I was in the FT of the deep. Took me 5 mins to get it back on! Made the biggest dent in my BH stack as I was chip leader on the deep.
Cash tonight I had a very small loss of about £25 playing PLO. Got it in good just didn't run well!
edit: Just got beat HU in the end. 2nd or 3rd time that's happened now in the deep stack and HU I rate myself pretty well at! I had a good handle on my opponent. He'd literally call every min-r pre so I ended up limping a lot. He was also just jamming it in a fair amount. Last hand of the match (effectively) I picked up AJ and raised it up to 9k and get shipped on for 110k (stacks pretty much equal). I was contemplating folding because I thought I really did have a big edge but I figure AJ is just too strong to fold there and I dominate a lot of Ax hands. So I called it off to see myself up against A6. 6 on the river!
Can't complain though I had my one piece of luck earlier on when I jammed 10bb's with 55 only to run into 77 and hit a flush.
OK so tonight I was in a "do I, don't I" conundrum about entering the super roller. I managed to enter a couple of all in satellites that had overlay but got no luck in any of them. Could have tried some ones after the tournament started to find some more overlay but in the end decided to buy in direct!
Oh no that was a disaster. I made a "hero fold" with AK on a K72 flop when I bet out strongly and get pot-raised and cold called. Turns out I was up against KQ and the nut FD and they got it in on a blank turn. Flush missed as well. Then I picked up JJ, raised it up and got 2 calls. c-bet a 889 flop and got raised on a blank turn by one of the players in that first hand. I should have folded but ended up calling + calling blank river.
So that's taken a blow to my BR from yesterdays nice profit. Please sky; no more deep stack tournaments with hefty buy ins! Crippling my roll
How is the roll getting on Ivan? Seems like you're crushing PLO/NLHE cash near enough every time you post, thought you'd be well on your way to 50/100NL.
Currently at £3,750 and playing 50NL a lot of the time. I've taken out a fair bit (£350ish) over the past month which has halted my progress to £4k on several occasions. Not to mention spending £230 in 2 weeks on the high roller and failing to cash! (did get close last week though)
I've not really been putting in anywhere near the amount of volume I would like to. Only just reached 5000 points last month and really should be aiming for around 10k points every month. Also not always been posting when I've had a bad session, although there haven't been too many of them. I said at the start of this diary I was going to aim to be a 100NL reg by the end of 2013. In truth I could start playing there now with the BR management I used to have and probably at the start of this diary even I planned to play 100NL with a £5k roll but now I'm thinking I won't give it a shot until I'm up to £7-£8k.
Had a mixed night so far tonight. Out the high roller early and cash was down, then up then down again. Played 50PLO and had got into profit when I got it in with AAKQ on a J34r 3 way in a 3b pot. Up against 255x and 3458 so still had ok equity. T on turn giving me any broadway card on the river to win the pot and J came on the river. Then had AKK8 and 4bet pre. Short stack was all in for 60bbs and I still had 160bbs behind with the bigger stack. Flop is A34 giving me TP + NFD. Beautiful. I c-bet and they shove drawing incredibly thin with JJ54 (+fd which i dominated) - so only a J or 2/runner straight could save them. Turn 7 and river 6.
In the half 7 deepy which I finished 2nd in last night I got off to a great start and got a really big chip lead when I doubled up with KK. Sat back for a while after that. 9 left and I was getting a nice run of cards. I raised AJs UTG and got 3b by CO and I folded. Then I raised UTG again next orbit with QQ and got 3b by the same player again. Really deep with them so I should probably flat but cause they did it previous orbit I decide to jam. Run into KK. Probably standard but hurt a bit. Then next orbit I had KK UTG. Raised it up and SB calls and jams on 844 with 77. Then went back down again after losing 88 against AQ. A while later I won a nice sized pot and then I pick up KK again and get it in vs QJ and hold.
So still in with 7 left. Chip leader atm with 60k. Almost final table. Running a lot better tonight than last night when I finished 2nd (in terms of starting hands I'm picking up)
So a new month, a new chance to get back to getting back into priority. I've started off well on that front and have 940 points for the first 2 days. Last night was a pretty successful night at the PLO cash tables where I made close to £300. However the tournaments I entered put a small dent into my profit.
Mini - Got off to a good, steady start but then spewed away some chips to leave me back with average. Then got a nice double up to 5k before losing TT to AK. Next hand I had AA though to double me back up. Lasted maybe half an hour before busting.
Main - Ugh. Flopped a set of 44s on KQ4 and raised it up. Turn was a Q and got it in. They had Q9 and hit a 9 on the river.
Deepstack - So aiming for 3 final tables in a row here. Got off to a terrible start where I just couldn't hit any flops and opponent always seemed to hit something. Was down to 3k and hovered there for a long time before I finally got my double up. Had a bit of a disaster exit hand. Chip leader who I'd just seen completely spew chips off to someone else when he calls 24o to a UTG raise and bets turn/shoves river with air then raises it up UTG. I'm in the BB with AQo and 3bet. He calls and flop comes 458. I should probably c/r AI here but for some reason I decide to c-bet myself and he comes over the top all in. I pretty much snap him off thinking he can have so much air here. Run into the nuts with 67o!!
£55 BH - Got off to a steady start in this when I picked up JJ and someone potted into me twice on a T high board. River scare card hecked through and they showed down QT. Then I went just completely card dead for ages. I finally picked up a hand - 88. Flat an UTG open and then a short (but not that short) stack shoves. I know it's a fold but stupidly make the call. Find myself up against QQ.... but quads come to save the day! After this I went back to being horribly card dead though and I had to be creative in finding good spots to steal/re-steal. Had one where I opened Q9 and got 3b and decided to 4b shove to get it through. I found myself 12/12 with 10 paid. Picked up AT OTB with 11bbs and shipped it in (not a hand you want to be min-r/fold or min-r call particularly) but ran into BB who woke up with Aces.
So I reached over £4k last night in my BR. Had a quick session this afternoon of 50NL. I managed to double my BI but then had a horrible hand with Gazza 200BB's deep where I lost it all. Less said about the hand the better!
Anyway thought I'd post some more stories about sixth form days and how I got into gambling/poker. First time I remember playing poker was in the common room in our sixth form. Think we were playing 10p/20p blind levels and I remember sitting down with about a fiver. There was someone to my left with about £18 and the rest of the table were playing really short stacked from what I recall. After a while most of the short stacks had busted/gone to class and I ended up playing HU or 3 way with this other big stack and another mate of mine. Then the head of sixth form walked in and saw us playing... uh oh. The cards were confiscated and that was that!
We may have played poker a couple more times after that but it was too much off a faff making sure no-one caught us!So instead we turned our gambling to knockout whist. Was much easier to play for money because we could just put the pot in the middle and cover it with a book or something. (or just exchange it after) Most of the time I ended up playing HU or 3-way knockout whist but by far my favourite was when we played 5 or 6 way because there seemed to be more skill involved here whereas in HU it was much easier to determine what the best play was. Also we used to not shuffle the deck at all to make memorising what cards had come/gone be skillful. When we played 5/6 way we would mainly play £1 or £2 games.
When we played HU it would often start at £1 games but the more someone got stuck, the more we'd play for. So we would end up regularly playing for a £5 each time. I experienced my first ever downswing playing this game as well. I was playing this one lad for a fiver at a time and then up to a £10 at a time one afternoon and I ended up being down £100 to him by the end of it. Over a weeks wages!! (I worked at a supermarket at that time about 16hrs a week) I didn't have that money on me at the time so I had to owe it to him. Word got out round sixth form that I owed someone £200 through gambling - don't know how it had been doubled!) and I was threatened with being kicked out of sixth form because of that (in addition to me not turning up to any classes!)
The next day this lad met me after school and drove me to tesco to get his money for him - was a bit of a surreal experience at the time being literally forced to give his money there and then. But it didn't deter me from playing much! Overall me, this lad and a mate of mine were the best players at this game and pretty much knew how to play it perfectly. So we'd win money off everyone else. Nearing the end of the year we went on a geography field trip and for the whole journey I played with this lad on the bus for both the journey there and the journey back! Started out with £1 games and at £5 down he wanted to play double or quits. I obliged (and won) and then did the same at £10 to win £20. We then went back to playing just £5 games until I got up to around £60 when we started playing £10 games. By the time we got back to school I'd won £100 off him.
Then the next day he began playing me again and I found myself £200 off him. I wanted to stop playing there because I felt a bit bad taking any more money off him than that (plus didn't even know if he could afford any more than that) - he had to go to class and our mate (the one who was good) said he'd play for him. I didn't really want too but agreed in the end. Not only to that but also to play £50 a game!!! He was having the worst luck against me though - we moved up to £100 a game when it got to £600 and by the end of the day he was down £1000 to me. In the end I never saw any of that money though - I said to the lad I'd ignore the £800 that the other mate lost for him and just keep it at the £200 which he was fine with. He said he'd be able to pay me next year (it was coming to the end of the school year) and I said I was OK with that. However, I then (unsurprisingly) failed miserably on my exams. Achieved a U in Maths and Chemistry and an E in Physics and Geography. Best mark was a B in General studies. So I left sixth form at that school and moved to a different college; where thankfully I did much better! But because of this I never saw this lad again. (no facebook at that time!!)
One final quick story - last day of sixth form I made around £90 in one day! Took £30 playing against a few different people and then took £60 off this one lad.
Just wondering what your thought process was for that hand we played was? Was that a value raise on the turn (as I dont normally have it) or was that an out and out bluff that backfired?
Nice post mate. Just wondering what your thought process was for that hand we played was? Was that a value raise on the turn (as I dont normally have it) or was that an out and out bluff that backfired? Posted by gazza127
Bit of both haha. I'm not really sure - I just thought I'd get you to fold a lot - perhaps some better hands and aswell as all your bluffs. And if I did get called then I had probably had 6 outs (2 queens, 4 tens) - it was a bad play though I think and was really annoyed/tilted about it for a good while after - even when I was trying to get to sleep that night! Also I think a bit of it was because of me playing too much omaha - I just thought "yeah, i have blocker to nuts, lets bluff at it" without realising that this is omaha and you can call me with much, much wider than the nuts!!
Last two nights have been unbelievably tilty! Yesterday I had a great start to the deep stack and then kaboom - lost it all and don't even remember how. Entered the £55 BH and that went really well. Was a front runner the entire way and then had a somewhat barren spell of cards. Blinds at 600/1200 and I had 30k and an aggressive chip leader opens the BTN for 3x to 3600 and I have KJ. Seems like a great spot to reshove but I'm a huge fan of small ball so it sucks when I'm forced to play like this. I did end up shoving and got called by A5 which held up.
Then tonight in the main BH I got off to a flying start as well. 10 minutes ago I was in 6th place with 18k chips. I'm now out. Had a new player join the table and straight away it was apparent he was very loose/aggro. Picked up KT OTB and isolated a limper only to get 4 calls. New player donks out 800 on a QJ6 flop I decide to just flat getting great odds. Turn is a T - not the best card but I flat his bet again with a plan for the river. River is a 7 and he bets 4k into a pot now about 8k. I don't think he can ever be that strong here and AK is in my range. So I decide to shove and get looked up by the one hand that would have folded on any other river card - J7!! Brilliant. Note to self: don't make moves on someone you have no reads on.
Still I'm up (just about) on the past 2 nights. But could have been so much better.
Comments
I had a pretty horrific morning before playing with you, mostly 6max but my HU opponent before you came did exactly what I did to you, just hit every single flop or got there with every draw, got every bluff through etc etc. They took nearly as much off me as I did off you so ended up only being like +£10 for the morning. I assure you the downswing is still in full swing and my BR is lower now than it has been for a very long time.... bring on C4P day to help me out a little!
You were very unlucky today, as you said, just everything went my way. Will post some hands in my diary later for ya but I've already posted 1 in the clinic. Anyone who reads this and that will now know you're the villian but w/e. Be interested to hear your thoughts in the clinic on it.... I think I can jam for value (dunno if u even remember what I did do)
I guess we will be butting heads very soon
gl
Just wondering what your thought process was for that hand we played was? Was that a value raise on the turn (as I dont normally have it) or was that an out and out bluff that backfired?